


apologia by reed richards

by fate-motif (Jo_Girard)



Category: Fantastic Four (2015)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon Compliant, Malnutrition, Multi, PTSD, Post-Canon Fix-It, Reed Richards Doesn't Get Vivisected This Time, self-hate, survivor's guilt, you get my drift
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-04
Updated: 2016-04-23
Packaged: 2018-05-18 03:39:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5896666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jo_Girard/pseuds/fate-motif
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>ap·o·lo·gi·a \ˌapəˈlōj(ē)ə\ n [LL] (1784) : a defense esp. of one’s opinions, position, or actions<br/>APOLOGIA implies not admission of guilt or regret but a desire to make clear the grounds for some course, belief or position.<br/>Reed’s attempts to make good on his promises backfire.<br/>-<br/>Apologia (2003). In Merriam-Webster's collegiate dictionary (11th ed.). Springfield, MA.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 11th of November

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 11th of November. First video log. 20 days since arrival to Panama.

Sue could work in the dark, but not Ben.

Ben has to gently remind her to turn on the light when they approach the computer lab. There’s no one to tell Sue to take care of herself at home anymore, when the rings under her eyes get grayer every day and the doses of caffeine he sees her with grow larger. It’s almost like working with Reed again - when centered on a goal, nothing else mattered, least of all themselves. But at least Sue thanks him when she’s reminded to turn on the light, and leads him to the only lit computer in the newly installed computer lab of their center. Beside it sits a cardboard box filled to the brim in newspaper clippings, notebooks, and stray papers. Ben kneels to sift through the pile as carefully as he can.

“Oh, that - that wasn’t what I called you about,” says Sue, but she hesitates mid sentence. And with every image and headline, Ben begins to understand why she’d want him to leave the box on its own. _La criatura captada en cámara_ . _El terror ataca a Eslovaquia._ Ben’s Spanish is rudimentary, but he recognizes his face, exclamation points, maybe a word or two that he’d picked up at Reed’s place. There’s also headlines in English, and the names for him get more and more creative. He can’t imagine what this sanctuary of hatred for him is for until he brushes aside a map of Latin America and arrives to a folded up picture. He can’t fold it open, but Sue’s got his back.

Despite all the conflict Ben feels when he sees the old picture, what he first wonders to himself is how Reed managed to get his hands on it as he ran from the government.

The picture was of their fifth grade field trip, and there was proof for a moment that Ben had been human once, but also that he’d cared for Reed, in that embrace. He was neither of those things anymore.

“This was found at Reed’s hideout in Panama,” mumbles Sue.

“If this wasn’t what you wanted me to see…”

“I have the videos ready.”

Ben’s eyes lift and turn to the computer screen in confusion.

“Just...come with me.”

There’s no ordinary chair that could take Ben anymore, so he has to crouch to be at eye level with the computer. Still, for some reason his muscles are far more durable then as a human, and he could stay in a position if he wanted for an entire day - he’d chosen to do so before. The problem was the videos, whatever they were, that Sue wanted him to see. And sure enough, the first still image that appears in the screen is that of Reed’s face. This is a good enough reason to leave for Ben.

“No, you have to stay.” Sue gives him a steely look for him to stay. 

Sometimes Ben wonders why Reed is obsessed with taking charge of the four of them, when Sue was their best - rational, intelligent, but also compassionate, and powerful. Once Sue pulled herself out of mourning, Ben expected her to take charge. Under Reed they’d probably run themselves into the ground, given time. Not with Sue.

So he stays.

“When the government went after Reed they also picked up everything they could from his hideout that could help them build the Quantum Gate project again, any progress he could have made on his own while on the run. And he kept all his work documented...everywhere.” She cleared her throat. “Audio, video, print, anything you can think of.”

Ben knew this. He’d witnessed this obsession of Reed’s of writing everything down. Because proper scientists wrote everything down, looked back for anything that could have turned to be a mistake, or just to keep tabs on progress. But this year, anything that came up about Reed was unexpected. He didn’t know if there was anything left of his Reed left, because his Reed wouldn’t have turned his back on Ben.

“And...he kept video logs, but they’re not all about the Quantum Gate project.”

“Delete them.”

Some part of Ben still couldn’t believe the words that left his mouth. Sue lifted his head and saw this perfectly well, looking into his eyes. She was one of those people that would look him in the eye - Harvey Allan had been the other. But here Sue showed no fake sympathy or a pleasant façade.

“You and I, and him and Johnny, are all dead to the world, Ben. We’re going to have only each other for company for who knows how long. Think about what that’s going to mean.”

“That’s our business.”

“It is? Because the moment we pretend not to have each other’s backs the government picks it up and comes after us one by one. We're easier to go after if we're not covering for each other. And if you’re going to fight, you’re not going to build that fight on misunderstandings.” Sue pressed play before Ben could protest any longer. He was about to step away from the screen in silence, until the dark screen suddenly lit up and the face of Reed Richards occupied the screen.

There were two sources of lighting in the shack, but neither made this living skeleton look any more human. It is not the face of the young man that had gawked up at the Baxter building in wonder, nor is he the emotionless masked man that faced the government with confidence Ben had never seen before. The bags under his eyes are several shades darker than Ben had seen at Reed’s worst, his skin is sallow and unhealthy, as were his teeth, and he’d forgotten to shave for a couple of days. Worse, he looked too thin for anyone his height. Also unusual was the bottle of alcohol on the desk where the camera had been set up - _Mate_. This was a runaway, cowardly rat.

 _Fitting_ , thinks half of Ben.

The other half was just growing sicker at the sight of Reed.

“Today being the 11th of November,” began Reed quietly, “I’m starting a personal log.” His eyes went to the screen, the desk, the bottle, avoiding the camera on purpose. “No scientific purpose, just…” He sighs. “I hope the work I do to fix what I did will stand for my apologia. Last thing I should ever do for the scientific community.”

There was a few minutes of silence where all that could be heard was the shrill cicadas outside of Reed’s little shack. Ben still tries to find any trace of the Reed that was alive and hunting for his place in the stars in this broken man. That other Reed was frozen in their old photograph, as was Ben Grimm. There wasn’t anything in common between them now. Especially when this man was moaning aloud that he was to leave his life’s work on account of one huge mistake.

Then Reed lifted his eyes and looked directly at the camera. A faint smile played on his lips; making him look even more like a ghost than before. But it is his words that unsettle Ben from the state of disgusted apathy he felt for Reed. “I’m going to come back for you, Ben, like I promised you, and we’re going to be human again.” Reed laughed a sad, defeated laugh. “I’m giving up everything else. Just to get everything back to how it was.”

 _That’s not an option anymore,_ but Ben is unable to answer back to Reed. He’d found another star to follow until he died.

“After that, what happens, I don’t care, but you’re going to be human again.”

That promise still drives Reed to this day. He avoids Ben, having given up on getting any reply from him, but he still spends hours on his research to lead him back to Planet Zero, for answers. Sue and Johnny sometimes humor him, but everyone knows Reed is deluding himself at this point.

“We get enough of this every day,” points out Ben to Sue. “I don’t need to hear it.”

Reed interrupts him; even in the past, even in a recording. “I’ve been smuggled, shot at, talked to people I never dreamed I’d ever meet, but it’ll be worth it. I made a mistake and I’m undoing it.” But now he looked away from the camera and let his voice break. “God, it’s too late for Johnny and Victor to try themselves. None of us meant for it to go this wrong...still doesn’t mean we didn’t...didn’t do the stupidest thing we could have ever done.”

Sue's eyes widen, as she registers this - Reed had last seen Johnny burning alive immediately after the accident. He had thought Johnny was dead.

“But I’ll make it up to you. Wish I could make it up to Sue and Dr. Storm, too.”

Reed looks back at the camera. “You know what, it’s 2 AM. If you were here, you’d send me to sleep, I have too much to do in the morning.” Again, the tired smile comes back. “Who knows how long this is going to take, but if I can end what you're going through sooner, I’ll have done better with these days than I did with my entire life.”

And Reed pressed stop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise. Here I am writing up new fics and not finishing old ones.
> 
> This is mostly canon-compliant, but it accounts as a post-canon fix-it because of the terrible and hurried nature of the last 30 minutes. Let's say that horribly written climax did happen - minus the least logical thing of them all, which was the Ben and Reed 'reconciliation'. Here's my alternative - three months in, they're still not talking, but Reed's video logs are going to shed light as to what he was doing in Panama, and his attempts to justify his running away. It won't fix everything, but to piece something together again, you have to at least pick up all the pieces to put together again. Here are some to be thought of.


	2. 23rd of november

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 23rd of November. Second video log. 42 days since arrival to Panama.

The next timestamp on the videos read 5:22 A.M. The Reed in this excerpt looked somewhat better, as if he'd gotten a shower recently. His eyes shone, _alive_ in spite of Reed’s overall pasty color.

“I went to sleep at 8:00 yesterday and I woke up half an hour ago,” began Reed, the corner of his lips tweaking with pride. “You know, to save on the electricity bill and all. I'm here for free, having asked friends of friends of relatives - but I'm supposed to be almost as if I wasn't here. The owner of this place is thinking of selling it but without fixing it up he can't do much. All this little shack has is light and running water - not even Internet. But just the water and light bills are bad enough - so I try to sleep through most of the night and work with every minute of daylight I have.” Reed’s eyes flickered to his side, away from the screen. “It’ll be dawn soon - here the sun comes up around six. But meanwhile, I’ll update my personal log because it’s good to clear my head. From nightmares and all.”

Months later, Ben and Sue both shiver a little from the reminder. None of them would be free of what they’d seen in this last year for the rest of their lives. Especially not at night when all they had was their own minds.

Reed’s face turned grim on the other side of the camera, and he pulled the monologue away from nightmares.

“All I do is work on the theoretics of the shuttle and not much else. Pen and paper and basic programming and nothing else so far because I’m going to need _a lot_ of metal for it. A lot that I don’t have. I have to scout other towns around the one I’m in to see where I can buy, trade or steal what I can - ” Sue lifts an eyebrow, and almost as if fugitive Reed could see her, he explains himself in fragmented sentences. “It’s not that I have a problem with crime! Anymore!” He gave a quiet laugh. “I talked to _smugglers_ to get this far. Just two days after running from the government base where they were keeping me I had to steal what I could from the garbage behind a fast food restaurant. It’s just…” He took a deep breath. “I swear, I don’t enjoy...stealing. It’s not just because I could get caught by the government. I don’t like taking risks so much, in any situation. And especially if the person I have to steal from loses a lot. I hope no one really needs all that scrap metal, because I sure do...” A genuine smile flashed across his face. “And speaking of scrap metal.”

Reed bent over away from the webcam in search for something at his feet. In his search, he hummed absently until he sprang back into view with a phone to show. The phone's broken screen displayed an image: the ugliest car Ben and Sue had ever seen. What with the layer of dirt covering the thing, the faded lemon green paintjob, the dented door on the side, and the outdated model, one could say Reed had finally found something that looked worse than him in his journey.

“I have a car!” he announced proudly. “It’s a 1990 Cadillac Coupe deVille, and it fell out of the sky for me.” He swiped the screen to move to the next picture in his gallery, and it showed an even dirtier interior. “Someone left it at the hardware store where I’ve been getting the little things I’ve needed so far to fix this place up. No one touched it for a day or two - probably expected the police to show up, if someone just left the car, it wasn’t a mistake. But so far nothing. And I talked to José Armando - that’s the owner - and he was going to call a tow truck before I mentioned I really needed a car.”

Obnoxious, but straight to the point. Reed’s finesse hadn’t changed much on the run, and there wasn’t much reason for it to change.

“I have to walk a mile or two to the hardware store. Not to mention going all the way over to L - the town nearby.” He covered his mouth mid-sentence. “Just in case the government finds these, I shouldn’t say exactly where I’m going.”

Reed took a deep breath before continuing. “Maybe I should end the log here. I mean. What else should I say? God, I wish Johnny were here.”

Back in the present, Ben feels an unexpected stab of betrayal from the confession. Just when he thinks Reed had let him down enough.

“He’d probably hate this car - ”

“Not wrong there,” Sue observes.

“But he’d also take it as a challenge. God, nothing was impossible for that guy. I...” Reed gave a small smile. “You know, I hadn’t realized that I’d built my life around thinking I was a genius. I only had Ben with me all that time, and he trusted my judgment. But when I went to Baxter, it was the Storms that helped me realize I had an ego.”

Sue’s been quiet so far, only looking at at the images with an icy glare. But now her disgust melts away and a little smile starts growing on her lips. Reed starts praising Sue from every angle. Sue, from Reed’s eyes, was everything Reed would meet in Baxter that would make him forget Ben. Had he been in love with her?

“And that was _Sue_ , who didn't like working with me.”

“That’s not true,” interrupts Sue. Her delight melts away, and she looks at the screen in disappointment.

“Johnny was pretty much the only real friend I had at Baxter. Sue and Victor, they had their own thing going on, and Johnny was never okay with either of them - he hadn’t talked to Sue for months and he didn’t get along with Victor because Victor was like that.” Reed snorted. “So he’d talk to me. Me, when even today, any time I say a sentence longer than eight words, people want me to shut up.”

“You should make those words count, then, Reed,” counters Sue, still taken aback by Reed’s earlier accusation.

“He was...okay, he was nothing like Ben, but the two would have been really close friends!” This time Sue and Ben can’t help but laugh, in light of every interaction Ben and Johnny have had for the last past four months. “I’m not that good an engineer and Johnny was the _best_ of them. He didn’t even have a bachelor’s degree, he just went to some classes and he knew it all and applied it on his own. And he made his own _cars._ I remember he even said that once he’d paid the ransom for his car he’d introduce us.”

Reed laughed, then looked at his phone’s screen longingly. “He’d definitely think this car’s a piece of ####, but it’s all I have here that I could actually consider mine - I could run away in it, if I had to! Better than everything I’ve done so far, going on foot and asking for rides. I love this ####### car, and I’m going to fix it up. Even if Johnny turns up as a ghost telling me to leave it to die. I don’t care.” Reed then hangs his head and laughs, as if something had just occurred to him. “It’s...it’s my Fantasticar.”

The name rings a faint bell in Ben, and he opens his mouth as he’s flooded by memories of ten-year-old Reed poring over crudely drawn sketches of a _flying car_.

Sue cringes at the word. “What.”

“When we were kids he used to want to build a flying car,” admits Ben. “He used to call it -

“I know, I know, it’s a horrible name,” explains Reed, who now can’t stop laughing. “But that’s the kind of name a ten-year-old would give a flying - ”

“He just really likes that word,” says Ben. He almost lets himself smile.

That is, until Reed clears his throat and checks the time on the phone. “Maybe this is a good time to end the log. Yeah.” The recording ends there, with Reed’s half narrowed eyes staring up the camera and straight at Ben and Sue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who just went through an incredibly humiliating week at school! That's right, _me._
> 
> I probably won't be updating for a while, if there is anything I learned from this week, it's that there's no limits to the amount of pain not paying attention to school can bring you. So here's a bittersweet-esque chapter, but things are going to pick up more. As a series of vignettes with an already-known resolution, there's no real set plot, but it is some insight to the intense reimagining I give Reed's character from the disaster of the film.
> 
> (Next up, Reed Richards is petty because of the Internet.)


End file.
